Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Pray with and for Charleston

Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Pray with and for Charleston

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet express deep sadness at the news of the killings of nine persons at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

We extend prayers to the families of Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Rev. Daniel Simmons, Rev. Sharonda Singleton and Myra Thompson, to all the members of Mother Emmanuel Church and all the AME family, and to the people of Charleston.

We weep with you and mourn with you and join the network of those praying with and for you around our country and world. We realize ever more deeply the need to acknowledge and confront racism and all systems of oppression and exclusion among God’s people.

We have been humbled and awed by the living example of God’s forgiveness you are exemplifying to the world. You inspire us to continue to build the bridges that will unite us and inspire us to a new vision of hope and a renewed call to action.

Our community documents call us to face our own racism and our systemic racism and find new and real “dimensions of communion” that will unify and transform us to live together as God’s children.

In the words of Rev. Pinckney, “Regardless of our faith, our ethnicity, or where we are from, together we come in love. Together we come to bury racism, to bury bigotry and to resurrect and revive love, compassion and tenderness.”

May the God of love, mercy and grace comfort all who mourn and grieve. May our faith strengthen us and our hope restore us to work untiringly to bring the justice, peace, freedom and equality for which our Redeemer died.